Halloween is arriving awfully early this year, but moviegoers have flocked to this franchise ever since 1978 when Michael Myers first began causing havoc. (I doubt they’ll care that this weekend is the wrong holiday.) My box office gurus expect the R-rated Halloween 9, directed by the aptly named Rob Zombie, to treat…

Then Hollywood producer Dominick Dunne claims Anthony Pellicano talked him out of arranging a hit on the life of the man who murdered his daughter Dominique. So the Vanity Fair special correspondent tells Kim Masters about those well-chronicled dark years after his daughter was strangled by her former boyfriend in…

On the second anniversary of the Hurricane Katrina tragedy, film director Spike Lee and CNN special correspondent Soledad O'Brien present “Children Of The Storm” tonight on the all-news channel. The duo gave cameras to 11 New Orleans area students back in January to record their lives in the wake of Hurricane…

“I look at that contract and I think I agree to most of that stuff on the back of my ticket to Disneyland.” …Kid Nation exec producer Tom Forman to TV Week about the draconian 22-page participation agreement which parents had to sign. It was just a matter of time before CBS found a way to blame Kid Nation on someone…

I’m going to take advantage of the long holiday weekend to file all the loose papers in my office, clean up my email accounts, and sort through all the tips you’ve given me (keep them coming!) in order to start next week refreshed and reorganized. So postings will be lighter than usual. But there’ll be weekend box…

So you’re a mogul, and you and the wife have split. She stays in the big Brentwood or Beverly Hills home with the kids. You could bunk at the Malibu manse but that’s an awfully long commute from Broad Beach or Point Dume. So if you’re Paramount boss Brad Grey, United Talent Agency chairman Jim Berkus, actor / writer…

Even though NBC keeps claiming that relations between the network and Leno are just fine, thank you, Jay keeps demonstrating his deep resentment. Everyone knows the host who’s No. 1 in late night ratings has to leave in 2009 to make way for Conan — the result of a shake-up orchestrated by Jeff Zucker in such a brutal…

So I’m challenging Les Moonves again. On Friday, I urged Mr. Smart But Smarmy to cancel Kid Nation and talk straight to his board about the show, and for the CBS directors in turn to hold his feet to the fire over that irresponsible abomination. (See my Les Moonves, A Mogul With No Conscience.) Now, in the short term…

A federal judge today has effectively blocked that subpoena for NYC journalist John Connolly’s Verizon phone records which Anthony Pellicano’s defense was demanding. The request went back all the way to 2002 when FBI agents raided the Hollywood P.I.’s offices. See my previous: Pellicano Demands Reporter’s Phone…

So old coot Sumner Redstone’s secret elixir for long life is four ounces a day of a little-known superjuice called MonaVie. “It’s a miracle drug,” he told Fortune. “I feel great.” The dark purple antioxidant rich concoction has at its main ingredient the Brazilian açai berry long touted among health nuts for its…

This one, in Sunday’s paper by Jeannette Catsoulis, about sequels: “Fans who tolerate the repetitiveness and ideological bankruptcy of the Rush Hour franchise, for example, may be testaments to the power of hope and a need for familiarity at a time when the Iraq war continues unabated, pensions and polar ice…

Because of (or in spite of) all those blockbusters and threequels, Summer 2007 today crossed the $4 billion mark, setting a new record for total domestic gross receipts. Media By Numbers which has been keeping a running tally on summer-to-date statistics just told me that the period May 1 through today has made $4.003…